Thiruvananthapuram, May 30(BPNS)
A former journalist with leading Malayalam news channels have taken to the social media stating that she and her family were targeted by the CPM cyberbully gang and her husband who is with the Kerala police was subjected to moral policing on Wednesday, 26 May 2021.
Her husband who is a Senior Civil Police officer with the Chombala police station, Vadakara in Kozhikode district was returning home when his friend who is a soldier working in North East requested him to enquire on the wellbeing of his parents who were staying 2 km close to his residence at Payam, Iritti in Kannur district.
When he stopped his bike near the friends home and was attending a phone call a group of drunken youths questioned him and was subjected to moral policing and police from Iritty station arrived at the scene and rescued him from the anti-socials.
In her Facebook post on Saturday late night, the woman journalist said that her husband who has never used alcohol in his life was subject to medical testing of alcohol use and was found negative.
However the pro- CPM social media groups started targeting the family and accused her husband of having found in suspicious circumstances and from next day onwards social media of CPM cyber groups and police association groups was full of stories about her husband and a news report appeared in CPM mouthpiece “Deshabhimani” on Friday, May 28.
Hit by the cyberbullying and the unprecedented news reports , Vineetha pleaded before the CPM leadership in a public post on Saturday night, which has gone viral by now in which she asked the CPM to relieve them of the trauma and to kill the family by a single swing of the machete.
In her post, Vineetha, says,” Myself,my husband, and my small children will come at Kannur town square and finish us off, but please kill us by a single swing of the machete”.
The lady journalist while speaking to BPNS said, “CPM and its cadres have been targeting me ever since I reported on the brutal murder of youth Congress worker, Shuhaib who was attacked by a group who are allegedly CPM men on February 12, 2018 and he died the next day following the injuries. The spot reporting antagonized me from the CPM and they started showering abuses on me and my husband in social media groups.”
Another incident which drew the ire of the CPM cyber warriors was a story she did while working with a leading news channel on the leakage of Covid positive patient details which was also reported by other vernacular news channels. The CPM cyber warriors targeted her and her husband and levied allegations that it was her husband who had given the information to her.
Vineetha while speaking to BPNS said, “This was pure vilification. I had done the story after two Malayalam channels had reported on the leakage and leveling the allegations that my husband had leaked to me does not stand as he is a lower level policeman and he cannot leak it even if he intends to do it as all the details were with senior police officers.”
The woman journalist said that her husband was transferred seven times in a row and even to outside districts which generally is not done in Kerala police and after she lodged a complaint with the state police chief, his transfer was canceled and he was brought to Kozhikode district which is adjacent to his home district of Kannur from Palakkad where he was transferred.
KK Rema, MLA whose husband TP Chandrashekharan was brutally murdered by the CPM men on May 4, 2012 while speaking to BPNS said, “CPM is now thinking that the electoral success is giving them anything and everything to do. They must understand that torturing a woman and her family will not do them justice and they will be relegated to the dustbin of history. I do stand strongly with Vineetha Venu and her fight for justice”.
With the CPM led LDF winning 99 seats in the 140 member Kerala assembly there were widespread apprehensions that the CPM would resort to its old politics of assaulting the opponents, and the allegations leveled by the woman journalist proves that the CPM is playing intimidation politics of the highest order including moral policing at its red fort- Kannur district.
CPM Kannur district secretary MV Jayarajan was not available for comment even after repeated calls.
